Observe, assert, and validate (OAV)

Don’t only ask, "How can I be helpful?" Try to develop a point of view and assert what to do.

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Read time: 4 minutes

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Operator #1 says to their manager: “How can I make your life easier? How can I add more value?”

Operator #2 says to their manager: “I noticed in our Monday morning meetings, we’ve needed to pull the X data and it’s a manual process. I’d like to create an automated table that tracks our weekly performance, so we can see trends more easily. This should take half a day to build. How does that sound?”

Which operator do you think adds more value?

It’s operator #2 for me. They noticed an area that was lacking, then suggested how to improve it in a way they could own fairly independently.

That’s adding a lot more value than putting the mental load on your manager to think about how you can help.

Asking how you can help is not as thoughtful as it seems

If you only ask your manager where you can help, your manager has to take multiple steps before they can accept your help.

Your manager has to consider:

• “What are all the things I need help with? There are a lot of potential things.”

• “What’s the overlap of things I need help with, that this person might actually have the skills, judgment, and capacity to do?”

• “How long would it take to explain this to them? This might actually cost me more time to teach them how to do this.”

• “How much do I believe in their ability to help?”

• “How much does this person already know? How much context do I need to get them up to speed?”

• “What's the risk if they mess something up?"

These questions come down to the ROI of accepting your help. Your manager is responsible for deploying you as an asset in a way that will maximize your value to the organization.

A good manager won’t simply dump stuff they don’t want to do onto you.

Why observing, asserting, and validating matters

Instead of only asking your manager where you can help, I recommend observing, asserting, and validating where you can help.

Observing matters for a simple reason: Your manager might not be able to articulate what they need. When you observe, you notice what might be helpful for your manager, even if they haven’t verbalized it.

To be clear, observing isn’t at odds with asking. You can ask AND be ready to observe. Look for clues, revealed preferences, implicit feedback, and what's unspoken. Observing is something you can do without anyone’s permission. You can start doing it today.

Asserting requires you to develop a point of view. In this case, you’re asserting a potential problem and what you could do to solve it. When you assert, you can be wrong.

But if everyone is scared of making assertions, then there’s no forward progress.

Everyone is too busy saying “Well, what do you think?”

And their peers say, “What do YOU think?”

“But what do YOU think?”

There’s no forward progress.

For further reading, here’s more on why high performers make assertions.

Validating. You do not need to fly blind. Once you assert, you should validate whether you’re going in the right direction.

It’s like playing Marco Polo. At every step, you’re checking to see if your assertion is directionally correct. What’s resonating with your manager? Where were you spot on? What else would do they suggest you look into?

Use this structure to assert your ideas

Let’s go back to the operator at the beginning of the post. The below script sounds simple, but it concisely captures all three parts of observe, assert, and validate:

Observe: “I noticed X. This is important because…”

Assert: “Here’s what I think we should do… / Here’s what I can do…”

Validate: “What do you think? / How does that sound? / Am I missing anything?”

So this is what it would look like in action:

Observe: “I noticed in our Monday morning meetings, we’ve needed to pull the X data and it’s a manual process. It requires about 2 hours of work each week, which adds up.”

Assert: “I can create an automated table that tracks our weekly performance, so we can see trends more easily.”

Validate: “This should take half a day to build and I'd like to take a stab at it. How does that sound?”

You want to be the type of person who takes work off your manager’s plate, not adds to it. You can ask how to make your manager’s life easier, but don’t only do that. Remember to observe, assert, and validate.

Thanks for being here, and I’ll see you in two weeks on Wednesday at 8am ET.

Wes

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